Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to a photocurable resin, and particularly to a photocurable resin composition for three-dimensional printing and a three-dimensional printing system.
Related Art
A fused deposition modeling (Fused Deposition Modeling, FDM) technology is generally adopted in most of common three-dimensional printing machines. In FDM process, a linear material is heated and extruded through a nozzle to produce a three-dimensional workpiece by way of stack of layers. As a result, a long time is required for formation of a three-dimensional article, and also several disadvantages and defects such as printing failure, warping, etc. are easily occurred since high intense expansion and contraction during printing by FDM process.
Further, an improved three-dimensional printing method of sequentially projecting patterns onto a photo-curable resin, layer by layer is also employed. By this method, after one layer is formed, the object under printing is then slightly raised while a new pattern for another layer is projecting. By repeating the procedures as above mentioned, a desired three-dimensional object is accordingly formed. For making mask patterns, among currently known techniques, digital light processing (DLP) is mostly utilized by state art. According to the DLP method, mask patterns are generally formed through ultraviolet lights by a micro projector and an ultraviolet curable resin is usually utilized as a printing material. During printing, the mask patterns for an object to be printed are projected onto the printing material by a micro projector of a three-dimensional DLP printing system, and the printing material is then cured due to cross-linking reaction, whereby a product of the object may be formed by repeating the same procedures thereof.
A light-curing system for three-dimensional printing may be available in a general commercial market. However, depending on the light source and print material used in printing, it often causes several disadvantages such as: high energy consumption, environmental toxicity, ultraviolet light damage, harmful to users' health, higher manufacturing costs, and so on. For example, in the DLP printing systems, a laser light source with a frequency band of ultraviolet lights, a near-ultraviolet light source, LED of 405 nm wavelength or another is used to make the ultraviolet curable resins hardened for the formation of the product of an object, and operation costs of which are expensive since high-energy consumption of light sources and has no goodness in commercialization and popularization. Further, the system hardware cost is increased by including a hardware device for protection the eyes of the users from harmfulness while using ultraviolet rays. Besides, during the three-dimensional printing, the resolution is deteriorated since an increased projection distance and an increased projection area are required for the micro-projection projector. Additionally, ultraviolet curable resin used as printing materials generally includes epoxy acrylic resin composition, which has odor and/or toxic to the users and environment.
Therefore, in view of the restrictions on the use of ultraviolet light source and ultraviolet resin printing material as described above, the conventional three-dimensional printing systems such as DLP and others are required to be further improved.